The Fool's Journey
by abrasiveCrusader
Summary: An AU of Tamers. Impmon gets a new partner that has no idea what's she doing. Elements of Shin Megami Tensei will be explored and applied, but not enough to make it a full crossover. Rating will change.
1. Chapter 1

Locating the entry to the human realm was no easy task, especially not for somebody that lacks power. But he was too inept at battling to win his fights by himself—his options became limited. Although his quick tongue and guile had kept him alive so far, he knows that eventually his luck will run out. The rules of the digital world were cruel-either he gets stronger soon, or he would wind up getting loaded by some wild digimon.

Impmon had heard a rumor- a rumor that said that if a digimon is able to get to the human world and find a human partner, then it would be possible for even the weakest digimon to evolve.

Digivolution was an arduous feat for even strong digimon in recent years. For Impmon to even survive this long made him wonder why he hasn't naturally evolved yet. Digimon evolution is determined by survival, so even if he hasn't won as much battles, he should have evolved into his Champion form by now. In fact, he has seen many powerful digimon that were perpetually stuck in their Rookie or Champion state, unable to progress to the next level.

_But if findin' me a human partner can help me digivolve, then I'll do it. I don't care how many digimon died tryin' to go to the human world, if I don't find a way to get more power soon, then it won't matter soon. I'll be toast._

But Impmon wasn't even sure how to get to the human world or if it was even physically possible for a digimon to get there. He would drift aimlessly, plodding his feet when he got tired, hiding whenever he found a digimon too powerful for him to take on, holding on to a thin thread of hope that he would be able to find his partner.

As crafty as he was, Impmon would eventually be unable to conceal himself from the larger predator. A Tyrannomon managed to sniff him out, flushing him out of the crevice he hid in with a large fiery blast. Impmon ran for it, finding it embarrassingly pathetic that all he could do right now was to run for his life. The giant dinosaur trailed behind him, blazingly fast despite its size. It lifted its foot up, intending to squash him like a bug. Impmon jumped out of the way, only to be met with a stream of fire. He was used to fighting with fire, but a fire produced by a Champion level digimon was far too much for him to bear. He fell to the ground, hurt, tired, and fearing for his life.

_No way… is it goin' to end like this? _

…_Pathetic Impmon… You're pathetic. Even if you could get into the human world… what human would even want you…_

He closed his eyes, expecting to his death to be quick at the very least. But before Tyrannomon could crush him into bits of data, Impmon heard collective voices of an innocent, childish giggling. A stream of light-creatures zoomed past him and with that, a small hole formed below his feet. It was large enough for him to fall in without problem, but far too small for Tyrannomon to follow him. He was safe.

The portal opened up at a park located in Shinjuku. A cool breeze blew gently through the summer night. But the moment he had emerge, a large cloud of electric particles formed around him as he began to physical manifest into the real world.

_Huh…? Where am I? Everythin' hurts… _

"Sis, sis look! There's a cat!" a young girl's voice shouts towards him.

"Can we pet him sis?" a little boy's voice asked.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Mako-chan. It might be dirty and mean," she said teasingly, "Your mother and father would get mad if I let you get hurt by a mean cat."

"Aww…" they both sounded disappointed.

_No wait come back! Help me you idiots!_

He was too hurt to talk. The best he could do was to mustered weak grunts and yelps.

"Sis, I think the cat is hurt," the little girl tugged on the woman's hand, "Can't we help him?"

"I…hmmm," she sighed, "I'll help it. You guys just stay right where you are. Can I trust you two to hold the groceries?"

The two siblings smiled and nodded in unison.

"We're gonna get a pet cat!" they whispered to each other.

"We're not keeping it. We're just going to take care of it until it gets better," she said.

She walked into the fog, grumbling along the way. "Ugh. This fog is so thick... my eyes hurt…" She waved her hand in front of her, trying to find the cat. Only to find wasn't a cat. It was… something new to her. She was, at the very least, startled to find some sort of child-sized imp thing lying on the floor, covered in scratches and burns. Her eyes were wide but she kept her voice in, not wanting to frighten her little cousins or whatever the thing that was lying on the floor.

"What…are you?" she asked in a low voice, carefully advancing towards him.

He was too weak to respond, only letting a small groan. He looks at her with his big green eyes, trying to muster the most pitiful looking face, pleading for help, any help that this human could give.

She could only look back him with confliction and sympathy. She wanted to help, but she knew that logically, bringing a 2 foot tall imp-cat-thing into a house with children is generally unadvisable. But she couldn't have the heart to abandon him after seeing his sad, pleading eyes.

Pity beat out the logical side of herself. She sighed and scooped up the cat-thing, placing him on her back.

"…I have no idea what I'm doing," she mutters under her breath, hoping she wouldn't regret this decision, "Ai, Makoto, we're going home."


	2. Chapter 2

Aside from the occasional whispers of children, it was very quiet inside the building. Impmon woke up on top of a pile of towels placed on the floor. His body was covered in some sort of sticky tape and smelly goo, but he was otherwise fine, if just a bit sore.

"Big Sis! He woke up!" Ai grabbed the attention of older girl.

Ai eyed the digimon, gingerly reaching out to pet him.

"Don't touch it! We don't know what it is, or what it might try to do with you," she said firmly, "I can't let you get hurt."

"Geez lady, I ain't gonna bite ya or nothin'."

The woman jolted. She grabbed the kids and backed across the room.

"Y-you can talk?!"

"Yeah I can talk. What, you ain't seen no talkin' digimon before?"

"Digimon?" she tilted her head, thinking back on the nostalgic craze, "But… Digimon aren't real. They're just TV shows and games, aren't they?"

"I'm as real as they come lady," Impmon tried to get up, but was still sore.

"Well, real or not, you should stay down. I'm not really sure what happened, but you got beaten up pretty bad. Cuts, bruises, burns-I mean, if you really are a digimon, I guess that would explain where you got those wounds from… but… I dunno, I still have my doubts..." she said uneasy, trying to take in the fact that some talking cat-devil-harlequin-monster thing was a real, live digimon sitting in a box in her living room.

"I don't know what you really are or what you're doing here, but try to get some rest. It's late and the kids need to sleep. …I don't want to see you getting up from that spot, got it?"

"I don't need to take no orders from a stinking human!" he said in a sharp, angry voice, "If I wanna get out of this dinky box and cause a little mayhem, then I will and you can't stop me!"

He felt a sudden, sharp sting to the face. The human woman was furious.

"If you don't like my rules, then you can go back outside. I don't care what will happen to you, the children's safety will always be my top priority. And if you even try to do anything that will put them in danger, I will swing you outside the curb with a 4 foot pole."

Impmon wasn't so much scared, than he was amused. Humans just didn't seem intimidating to him, and having one of them try to bare their teeth and speak in a low voice was like seeing a kitten trying to be a lion.

_Adorable, funny, and a little pathetic. Boy, humans sure are stupid. _

Even after the children have been tucked away and the lady fell asleep on the living room couch, Impmon didn't move from his bed. Sure, the lady had a metal rod in her hand, but he was too sore to move about anyways. He understood that he would have died if those humans didn't save him. Even now, he probably couldn't survive with his injuries. He bitterly accepted the conditions the human adult had given him, but nevertheless, suffered a deep injury to his pride.

_After I get better, I'm bustin' out of this place. I don't need no human partner in a place like this. I don't need any of them._

* * *

But Impmon never left, even after all his wounds has healed. He couldn't quite understand why he felt compelled to stay. Every time he would try to leave, he would make up an excuse to stay with the three humans.

_I get free food, bed and entertainment. Why would I even think about giving this up?_

Eriko would often complain about his freeloading tendencies, but she never thought about kicking him out, despite how obnoxious he would get. Although they would often get into arguments due to his unruly behavior, at the very least, she stopped treating him as a cat and he would stop addressing them as "human".

Meanwhile, the two children, Ai and Makoto, were delighted to have a playmate. They would spend their afternoons playing hide-and-seek with their digimon. They could never win against Impmon, since they were severely disadvantaged when it came to climbing trees and buildings. It was an unfair advantage and Impmon knew it.

"Impmon, where are you?" they cried out.

_Heh heh, suckers don't even know where I am. Buncha nitwits don't even bother checking up the roofs. _

Impmon snickered from the rooftops, watching as the twins look around the yard of the apartment complex. They looked under tables, peeked into bushes, and turned over a bucket. They still couldn't find him. An hour went by and the children began to panic, searching frantically for their digimon, thinking they had lost them. When they had about given up, they began to cry.

_Hey wait, don't cry! _

"Here I am!" he alerted them as he jumped off the roof and landed in front of them, laughing nervously, "I was pretty good at hiding right?"

"Impmon!" they both wailed as they hugged him, "We thought we lost you…"

"Don't be such big babies; I was only gone for a moment," he said gruffly, pushing the snot-nosed kids away

"Mommy and Daddy were only gone for a moment…" they sniffled, "And then we couldn't find them. We thought you would go away too..."

_Huh? What are they talking about? Mommy? Daddy? What the heck are those? _

Impmon wasn't sure how to comfort two crying children. He didn't really try to, anyways, and insisted that they stopped playing and brought them back inside so Eriko could deal with them.

After explaining the situation to her, Eriko sighed. She frowned at Impmon for instigating the situation, but understood that even children would start to grow suspicious of their parent's absence.

"Mommy and Daddy are just busy staying with Grandpa in Hokkaido for a while. Grandpa is sick, and they need to be there with him," Eriko explained in a gentle voice, "What's wrong? Don't you like staying with me?" She asked teasingly.

"We love you Sis… but we miss Mommy and Daddy too. When are they coming home?"

"Uhhh…" Eriko ran through the possible responses in her mind, trying to filter out the best response from experience to defuse the situation. She picked the best choice she thought of, and responded with a gentle smile, "When they call me, you can ask them yourselves, alright? Why don't we go see a movie? You guys must have been bored lately, staying at home."

The children's eyes lit up, immediately forgetting about their sadness.

After dinner, the kids went to sleep, exhausted from their day of play. Eriko was finishing washing the dishes, while Impmon slumped on the couch, flipping through channels on the TV.

"I don't get this," he said flatly as he flipped through several late night dramas, "What's more is, I don't get why you humans like this."

"Well," Eriko dried her hands and joined him in front of the television, "That's because you don't understand human culture. We're a pretty complex species with a long list of history and traditions. Without understanding our social background and behaviors, it's only natural that you wouldn't understand the stories we tell."

"Or, you humans are just really boring."

"Oh come on, you have to give us a bit more credit than that. Hmph. I'm pretty sure that we're the ones that made you in the first place. You're a digimon- a digital monster, correct?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Digital means something relating to computer or data technology- something invented by humans. So I can safely assume that if digimon are real, they are by extension, a creation of man. So in short: We. Made. You."

"Oh whatever. Just cause you made us doesn't mean a thing. We're still stronger and cooler than all you humans. Like this!" Impmon snapped his hand as a spark lit on his fingertip, "Ha! I bet you humans can't do this!" he said tauntingly.

"Hey, I thought I told you to quit doing that!" she said angrily, "I'm getting the fire extinguisher."

"No wait don't!" Impmon quickly dispersed the fire, "See, all gone!"

"Look Impmon, you can't go around making fire left and right. It's dangerous."

"Oh please, I can control it," he said without concern, "After all, what's the worst that will happen?"

"Do you want to know what's the worse can happen? Because I can give you a detailed example on what the worst could happen. Imagine a bright and sunny day. Ai and Makoto just finished playing and came inside for a drink and I'm sitting in the living room, reading a book without a care in the world. Everybody is as happy as can be, smiling like a bunch of happy humans doing their human things. And then you start lighting up stuff on fire just because you think it's funny. But oh no! One of your sparks goes awry and hits the couch! I get up; trying to stop it from spreading but it has already caught the curtains! The entire apartment complex goes up in flames. We all try to run, but by doing so inhale the smoke and choke to death as our bodies slowly roast away from the heat, leaving only our charred remains to be identified by our family. All because you thought playing with fire was harmless."

"Geez, okay, okay! I get it lady!" he said, disturbed by her detailed hypothetical situation, "I won't make no fire inside the house alright?" He looked down at his hands, fiddling with his fingers, "You're... not mad at me are ya?"

"I'm not mad," she sighed, "I just want you to understand that it's not always about you and what you can do. You have to think about other people and how your actions affect others."

"Hmph. And this is coming from the same person that went to go see the human movies without me."

"…Oh. You wanted to go? I assumed that you would hate the human movies because of the boring human stuff that happens in the boring human movie theaters."

"Well, I- uh."

"I'm just kidding," she said, "…Sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings though."

"It's not just your human movie-ings. Whenever you take Ai and Mako somewhere, you never let me go with you," he pouted before he caught himself, "…Not that I would want to go or anything."

"Well realistically, most people would freak out if they saw a 2 foot tall, talking purple cat-jester prancing around the streets of Shinjuku. It's not that I don't like you, Impmon, but most people aren't ready to see a digimon just yet and I don't know what they will do to you if they do. I'm sorry."

Impmon looked down, frustrated that he couldn't spend time with his caretakers outside of their home. He could sneak out of the house and explore the city, but he always had to stay in the shadows, never letting himself get seen.

"…But… the autumn festival is coming up soon. I suppose… I can take you there and convince everybody that you're just another one of the kids dressed up as an oni," she giggled, "It's a silly idea, but I've seen so many strange cosplays around lately, that this could actually work."

"An autumn festival? What's the heck is that?"

"It's just a little celebration we have each year to mark the last days of summer. There'll be food, games, and firework. I'm sure you'll like it."

She paced back and forth, pondering on how this would work out.

"I'll need to buy something that'll hide your feet and tail. Maybe a long yukata? And… maybe a mask just in case? Or I could just tell them with my straightest face that you're just wearing a full costume. Would they question how your mouth moves when you talk if you're just wearing a costume? Or how your anatomy is clearly impossible for a person to pull off? This would be so much easier if you were more human-like digimon…"

"Well _so-rry_ princess. I can't help the way I look."

"Yes you can! I've seen it on television before! Just digivolve! Digivolve like Patamon did!" she joked, "And maybe you'll turn into an Angemon like he did! …Or maybe not… You might turn into something creepy, like Devimon," she laughed, "Ewww noooooo! Don't digivolve into a Devimon, Impmon! Stay cute, like the way you are!"

"Listen doll, I can't even digivolve yet. And even if I could, I would not want to 'stay cute'. I would digivolve into the most awesome, coolest, powerful digimon around!"

"If you can't digivolve, then I guess I have no choice but to help," she smiled, "So you'll remember us, even when you're the strongest, right?"

"Huh? What are you sayin'?"

"I remember you saying something about coming to the human world to get stronger, right? I'm… not sure how this will work or what I'll be doing… but, I do know that I want to help you, Impmon," Eriko touched her lips, trying to hide a stupid grin, "That and when you do digivolve into something awesome, I can do cool stuff with you. Like, riding you like a horsey, flying, or going underwater."

"What am I, your taxi cab? I'm not gonna let you ride on me like some dumb cow."

"Come on, please? By the time you're done digivolving, carrying one person shouldn't be too hard for a strong digimon like yourself."

"Well what if I can't fly, gallop, or go underwater like some whale? What will happen then?"

"Uhh, you'll give all of us a piggyback ride around the block. And I'll buy you ice cream afterwards?"

"…Fine. But I get to choose what flavors I want."

"It's a deal," she shakes his hand.


End file.
